[WikiEN-l] Notability for FLOSS - the public's reaction

[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:58 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Gwern Branwen wrote:
>> The [[dwm]] deletion discussion has caught the interest of some of the
>> more nerdy online communities:
>>
>> - http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/b8s29/the_wikipedia_deletionists_are_at_it_again_this/
>> - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1163884
>>
>> It's interesting to see the general levels of disgust and how few
>> current editors there are in comparison to former, and read the
>> dislike of WP:N.
>>
> As usual, one has to sift the arguments. Why aren't blogs included under
> RS? That would be because they are generally unreliable? Why does a
> snowboarding slalom event not have its own article? That would be
> because no one has started one, I guess. Why does someone who left in
> 2006 still bring it up? Elephant's memory for grudges, I suppose.

4 years is hardly extraordinary. What events would someone who left
because of something in 2006 cite other than it? 'Oh, I left in 2006
and haven't contributed since, but an excellent example of what I mean
was the deletion discussion for [[foo]] in 2008; of course, I don't
know anything about it since I wasn't contributing as I said, but you
see what I mean.'

> Oh yes, and what Carcharoth said about FLOSS history needing the
> secondary sources: if "they" don't write the history, it isn't just WP
> coverage that suffers, but the whole documentation, especially if the
> primary sources are emails, perishable web pages, and suchlike.
>
> Charles

So basically, 'if you guys choose to use modern media like wikis and
blogs, and not dead tree formats, then don't cry about your articles
being deleted - it's all *your* fault! Cut your hair, you damn
hippies!'

-- 
gwern